Incubator Arts Project Presents THE CLIMATE CHRONICLES 11/10-19

THE CLIMATE CHRONICLES, created and directed by Donovan & Calderón, and performed by Sean Donovan, Sebastián Calderón Bentin, Paige Collette, Hannah Heller is running November 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 17, 18, 19 with an 8pm curtain.

Sean Donovan (Witness Relocation, Jane Comfort & Company, Builders Association) & Sebastián Calderón Bentin's (Goat Island, Ann Carlson, Witness Relocation) first evening length collaboration premieres at the Incubator Arts Project this November.

The Climate Chronicles has been made in collaboration with Paige Collette and Hannah Heller. The work was developed through an artistic residency at Stanford University.

The Climate Chronicles is an ensemble created dance/theater work that narrates the story of a team of questionably qualified American climatologists and bureaucrats as they return from one international conference on climate change in Japan only to begin preparations for another in Spain. The work raucously unpacks the culture and behavior of the scientific, diplomatic, and activist communities that have formed around this growing social crisis. Using the lab, the airport and the conference hall as dramatic backdrop, the scientists untangle and re-tangle themselves in the ridiculous web of climate bureaucracy.

Through their travails we delve into the worlds of each character as they crumble under pressure and their personal lives seep into the professional bubble. Spontaneous book clubs meet on the conference room floor; a lab director's emotional connection to gambling transforms a late night meeting into a support group; the study of beaver populations devolves into a Mel Gibson fan club. What we are left with is not just a display of global crisis red tape but a search to find the meaning of how and why we meet and gather.

Donovan & Calderón appropriate the surreal and absurd elements of everyday life using them as raw material for new performance work. This allows them to challenge their own theatrical conventions while reflecting on social and political responsibilities as part of a global community. They have collaborated previously on the bi-lingual site specific performance, Se Vende in Panama City, Panama as part of the FAE Festival, as well as performances at Galapagos Art Space and The Brooklyn Arts Exchange. The Climate Chronicles marks their first evening length collaboration in New York.

About the Artists

Sean Donovan (Director, Performer) is a Brooklyn based actor, dancer, and writer. He is one of the original performers of the critically acclaimed Witness Relocation Theatre Company with whom he has been making work both nationally and abroad for the past ten years. He is also a member of the Bessie Award winning Jane Comfort and Company. In New York, he has performed as an actor and dancer at such places as The Kitchen, PS122, HERE Arts Center, Joyce SoHo, The Duke, The Baryshnikov Center, The Ontological Hysteric Theatre, The Ohio Theatre, Dance Theatre Workshop, La MaMa ETC, Theatre for the New City, Dixon Place, Galapagos Arts Space, and the Brooklyn Arts Exchange. He has trained and performed internationally in France, Holland, Romania, Poland, Russia, Panama, Canada, Thailand and Japan working with the highly acclaimed Ildi! Eldi of France and Sankai Juku Butoh company of Japan. He is currently working with The Builders Association on their latest piece, HOUSE/DIVIDED which will premiere at BAM in 2012.

Sebastián Calderón Bentin (Director/Performer) - Born in Panama City, Panama, Sebastián first trained as a performer with director Alberto Isola and choreographer Mirella Carbonne in Lima, Peru. Recent he collaborated with Lin Hixon and Matthew Goulish of Goat Island at Stanford University in The Midnight Stratum: William James at Stanford, 1906 (2008) and TESSERACT (2009). Additional credits include Crossing the Lines with Anna Deavere Smith at the PUCP Cultural Center in Lima; Bardo written/directed by John Jesurun, and Timon of Athens at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London. In June 2009 he was invited to collaborate with a performative lecture as part of Tim Etchells and Matthew Goulish's Institute of Failure in Zagreb, Croatia He is currently a doctoral student in the Department of Drama at Stanford University.

Paige Collette (Performer) is an actress, writer, and performance artist devoted to the creation of new work. Her award-winning performances are both comic and surreal -- suffused with sexuality, metaphor, and food. Her shows include Tender Hooks, Brenda McIntire, CEO, and Buttercream & Scotch (excerpts published by Brooklyn Review). She holds a BFA in Theatre from New York University. She has taught workshops on food in performance at the University of Minnesota and Bedlam Theatre.

Hannah Heller (Performer) is an actor, dancer, and writer. She has just returned to the US after living and training in Paris at L'Ecole Philippe Gaulier. She began her career as a tap dancer and was a founding member of Savion Glover's company, Tii Dii, with whom she toured nationally and internationally for several years. She has performed with such luminaries as Taylor Mac, Jennie Liu, Bobby McFerrin, Gregory Hines, Rachel Chavkin, Katie Workum, Nellie Tinder, and Heather Christian.

With set and lighting design by Jay Ryan (Dance Theater Workshop, Big Dance Theater, John Jasperse, Witness Relocation) , costumes by Felix Ciprian (Jose Limón Dance Company, Jennie Marytai Liu) and sound design by Brandon Wolcott (Woodshed Collective, Faye Driscoll Dance Company)

About Incubator Arts Project
Incubator Arts Project aims to further innovative performance by serving independent artists based in NYC who create original work.
By offering a series of production programs that provide space, labor, technical assistance and administrative expertise, Incubator Arts Project supports the presentation of world premiere, contemporary work in the performing arts made by dance, music and theatre artists. Core programs include our New Performance Series, MUSIC and Short Form.

Incubator Arts Project has received favorable press coverage in American Theatre magazine, The New York Times, TIME OUT New York, The Village Voice, and The Brooklyn Rail and won a 2010 Obie grant.

Incubator Arts Project is a program of Performing Artservices, Inc. and is led by a team of working artists (Curators) who make creative decisions collectively in consultation with the administrative staff. Performing Artservices Inc. is a non-profit organization whose mission is to produce, present and facilitate the endeavors of artists working in contemporary forms of the performing arts. Founded in 1972, artists whose careers/companies have been developed under Artservices management include Mabou Mines, the Philip Glass Ensemble, Joseph Chaikin's Open Theater, Trisha Brown, David Gordon, Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater and John Cage. Incubator Arts Project is the newest program to come under its oversight.

Incubator Arts Project is grateful to acknowledge the following organizations that support their work.

New York State Council on the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Mental Insight Foundation, Bloomberg Philanthropies.